Monday, February 23, 2009

Height Increase Surgery

I purchased some 15mm miniatures from the Alternative Armies TTF line to determine whether I could use them for my purposes, but for the most part they are true 15mm figures.

Pictured to the right of George are the Human Illusionist (MDA47F), Human Magician with Wand (502F), Human Assassin (506F), Female Fighter in Plate (514F), Female Magic User (510F), and Female Cleric (511F). Except for the Illusionist, they are all small and slender compared to George. I imagine that their Barbarians and Asgardian may be larger figures as well, but I didn't have examples of the figures to add to the line-up. All of the female figures in the TTF line are the same size and proportions as the examples in the pictures above.

Taking a page from the plastic surgeon's handbook, I decided to perform cosmetic limb lengthening surgery on some of the figures. I used a razor saw to cut the miniatures into two pieces. I then drilled holes in the upper and lower halves of the figure, roughly in the position of where their legs would be.

I then cut the points from some pins, and used CA glue to attach them to the lower half of the miniatures (see picture above, far right). I wanted to extend the staff for the Illusionist, so I cut the skull from the end of the staff, and used a pin to increase the length.

After the glue dried, I cut the pins to the approximate length that I wanted to increase the height and did some dry-fitting and adjustment before gluing the upper half to the pins. The result is about a 4-6mm gain in height.

Kneadatite was used to fill in the gaps, and voilà -- 15mm miniatures become 20mm miniatures.